White House faults McKinsey survey methodology
McKinsey & Company has released details regarding the methodology of a survey that concluded that employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) will drop by a third after 2014. The White House subsequently blasted the methodology in a blog post.
The original report predicted that “30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering ESI in the years after 2014," but did not offer the methodology for its survey of 1,300 employers.
McKinsey & Company commissioned the survey to measure U.S. private sector employers' attitudes about healthcare reform, and it was not intended as a predictive economic analysis of the impact of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to a June 20 statement on the company's website.
The survey results are not comparable to research and analysis conducted by others such as the Congressional Budget Office, RAND and the Urban Institute, which employed economic modeling, not opinion surveys, and focused on the impact of healthcare reform on individuals, not employer attitudes, according to McKinsey.
"We understand how the language in the article could lead the reader to think the research was a prediction, but it is not.”
In response, Nancy-Ann DeParle, assistant to the President and deputy chief of staff, wrote in a June 20 White House blog that the new information makes clear that the survey is "flawed" and raises additional questions. “And as we learn more, it’s become clear that this one flawed study from McKinsey is truly an outlier,” DeParle wrote.
The original report predicted that “30 percent of employers will definitely or probably stop offering ESI in the years after 2014," but did not offer the methodology for its survey of 1,300 employers.
McKinsey & Company commissioned the survey to measure U.S. private sector employers' attitudes about healthcare reform, and it was not intended as a predictive economic analysis of the impact of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA), according to a June 20 statement on the company's website.
The survey results are not comparable to research and analysis conducted by others such as the Congressional Budget Office, RAND and the Urban Institute, which employed economic modeling, not opinion surveys, and focused on the impact of healthcare reform on individuals, not employer attitudes, according to McKinsey.
"We understand how the language in the article could lead the reader to think the research was a prediction, but it is not.”
In response, Nancy-Ann DeParle, assistant to the President and deputy chief of staff, wrote in a June 20 White House blog that the new information makes clear that the survey is "flawed" and raises additional questions. “And as we learn more, it’s become clear that this one flawed study from McKinsey is truly an outlier,” DeParle wrote.